Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner has been on the job for just a few months now. He says he’s concerned about the state’s economy and his new job is one that can help turn things around.

Republican Steve Poizner has laid out an ambitious agenda for his new job… But he says a primary goal is to drive down insurance costs. He says the savings will help customers and pump more cash into the state’s economy.

“ I regulate about 120-billion dollars of insurance premium a year. That’s close to 15-percent of the entire California economy…”

Poizner says one way to address the issue of costs is to tackle insurance fraud—he says that runs about 15-billion dollars a year.

However he says he must first deal with a 25-percent vacancy rate in his fraud fighting unit. In a speech to the Sacramento Press Club, the Republican said among his other goals is to make the Insurance Commissioner a non-partisan office. He also wants to ban insurance companies from donating to insurance commissioner candidates.